The plight of the artist was one of great interest within the field of applied psychoanalysis from its earliest days. In the meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, considerable time was devoted to the discussion of this issue, Freud having relied so much upon literature and art for evidence to support his ideas about the unconscious. Ultimately, he became skeptical as to how thoroughly the creative process could ever be understood and reached the conclusion that -Before the artist, the analyst must lay down his arms.-

In this volume an inquiry into the nature of the...